Today we are concerned in some ways by the thought that CCTV can capture our actions and the issues about our privacy.  This is balanced with the comfort that so are others and those who have nothing to hide are safe.  Data (video) is kept in the promise that at some point it could be used to protect you, and conversely used to capture you, when the algorithms become sufficiently good to interrupt actions, I hope never intent.

Today, in the most part, the CCTV system cannot link the image of you to an identity of you.  When this link is established could it be used to make your personal data more secure?  If you lost your phone, image the local CCTV network acknowledging that it is not you holding your phone and locks the device up, or indeed starts to track it.

Would such data (systems linking images to identity) be of use, or are the benefits outweighed by the possible downsides?

Article today in SF Gate  http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/07/05/BU4V1E8D9V.DTL

What would it take for an individual to erase his digital footprint? Is it even possible to exit the Internet? The short answer is no.

 Dark Screen

When writing my digital footprint I updated the Six screen’s of life work originally developed for mobile web 2.0  (extract on read/write web)  However, I have now realised that I missed one out.

What is said in summary is that for the most part, we are consumers of content. In our daily lives we consume professionally created, produced and edited content from traditional and new media providers on our ‘six screens of life’. These screens are divided into two broad categories, big screens and small screens, each with three subgroups as per figure 2.

Figure 2:  6 screens of life

 Both for big and small screens, the user has traditionally been a passive receiver of content (content has been broadcast to the user) or the user has been seen as a member of a carefully controlled and managed audience (e.g. voting) – but not as a primary creator of content. For instance:

· both TV and cinema need users to consume (view); and

· a website needs users to consume/interact in most cases.

However, according to Forrester, “Monolithic blocks of eyeballs are gone. In their place is a perpetually shifting mosaic of audience micro-segments that forces marketers to play an endless game of audience hide and seek.” As advertisers lose the ability to invade the home, they will have to wait for invitations, and this means they have to learn how to adopt and understand the user, a good reason for understanding the impact of digital footprint.

Reflecting the above trend, most of the content on the mobile device to date has also been the ‘re-presentation’ and ‘reproduction’ of existing material delivered to the mobile screen. The mobile device, however, is changing from being a primary consumer to a major creator of content. It is worth noting at this point that the separate screens of life don’t have to be managed or offered by separate service providers, devices will no longer control what you can do and where, instead the screen will be able to come under the control of the user, with services relevant to the size of the screen. However, least we forget that the interactive age of communicates and social media delivers diversity and innovation, broadcast amplifies.

The missing one is as obvious as the one’s in front of you as it is the one you don’t look at.  The seventh screen it is the “dark screen”, the screen that is off the bottom of the lit screen.  Why is this dark screen important, as it is the one that represents your scrolling that means some content has just gone or is the one that someone is trying to be lit up for you.  99.999% of the internet is dark screen.  The data and information is there is it just not lit. 

Why was I thinking about this?  I have been working out how long a Tweet is relevant for as it moves from the top of the list, down to the unlit portion of your web page.  Have some interesting data on this ready for the next blog.

I was invited by Olswang to private viewing of Erasing David which is a documentary about privacy, surveillance and the database state. Made with The Channel 4 BRITDOC Foundation

“David Bond lives in one of the most intrusive surveillance states in the world. He decides to find out how much private companies and the government know about him by putting himself under surveillance and attempting to disappear a decision that changes his life forever. Leaving his pregnant wife and young child behind, he is tracked across the database state on a chilling journey that forces him to contemplate the meaning of privacy and the loss of it.” 

The plot is about David, who tries to run away and hide and in the process discovers how his data can be tracked and presents his story. The film will be in cinemas on 29^th April 2010, and screened on the UK’s Channel 4 Television on 4th May 2010.

From my perspective it is a dark side story line about privacy, surveillance and liberty, where if you have nothing to hide or fear you will be fine.

This post is not a blow by blow transcript or film critic. As a documentary it brings out some great points, from a clear stance and perspective; if you are concerned, be really concerned. However, here are a few take aways....... Some I don't agree with!

·         Focus on how much (data) is sensitive rather than how much is held

·         How to hide privacy is not a decision on what to hide but what you should expose.

·         You have very little control over information or authority to determine what can (or not) be found. In reality to control your privacy you need to control your friends, as most data can be acquired and friends leak. The picture of your life is the combination not your just what you give but what others give up.

·         Information is services.

·         Tracking people requires people.

·         When all stable, all is good. When it goes wrong (data is wrong or mishandled) - this is the problem, corrupt and in-accurate data is a significant issue.

·         Primary use of data is to find more ways to sell or make processes more efficient.  (little naive)

·         Ability to opt out does not help you, missing data still allows a profile to be built.

·         What do you have to give up (free services) to not give up data. 

·         People lie to get your data.  Data raped. Data is cheap.

·         Nothing is new, data has always been available. Corruption is not the main option today, but misrepresentation and fraud work.

·         Combination of data gives the picture. 

·         Liberty and privacy; are they fundamental?  Absence of privacy, what does this actually mean. 

·         Looking after data, what they know vs what data they have.

·         Tech has reduced budget and time to find out what has always been on record and increased the number of sources.

·         Low tech is beautiful and depends on the stupidity of people.  Technology is not the issue, people are the weak link.

As a comment, this documentary could have been a high tech fantasy, breaking into bank accounts, tracing payments or travel cards, bugs and tracking but it stays true to life and was low tech in so many ways, showing how easy it is to  reach your data because your are lazy and that human error is the weakest link. 

Link to MyDFP – dark side is real, however so is using your data to create value.  I focus on the creative value adding side.

Wendy Grossman did a write up as well here